Faith West Inc., a mobile corporation based in San Francisco, launched their service called “Divine Calling” which offers top-hits ring tones from the CCM, Gospel and Worship genre. The service is expected to first launch and start off in the U.S. and then spread to additional carriers throughout the year.
The rising popularity of Christian Rock and other Christian Contemporary genres affected grand changes not only in the mainstream music industry, but also in that of mobile phones, since ring-tones are popular among cellular phone users.
Faith West’s President Carolynne Schloeder shares, "Mobile music is a new medium for inspiration and praise. With Divine Calling we've created a wireless service exclusively for fans of spiritual music."
For the past year, CCM and gospel music sales figures have climbed and earned respect in the marketplace. According to the GMA (Gospel Music Association) records, the combined Gospel sales of the year 2003 represent a total of 7.14 percent of all music sales, which puts them ahead of Latin, Jazz, Classical and soundtrack categories.
The Divine Calling service offers ring-tones licensed from the leading music publishers of the music industry, including EMI CMG, Brentwood-Benson, and Word Music Publishing. Examples of music ring-tones include versions of More to Life by Stacie Orrico, Show You Love by Jars of Clay,Redeemer by Nicole Mullen, Meant to Live by Switchfoot, and Here I Am to Worship by Tim Hughes, among others.
"A lot of our customers are interested in Christian music, and Divine Calling is the perfect place to find it," said John Cregier, senior director of data services and strategy for U.S. Cellular. "Faith West works with the best names in the industry to deliver some of the most popular Christian music songs out there, giving our customers choices for personalizing their ring-tones."
